


Kill Fee

by Moon_Disc



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-12 18:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moon_Disc/pseuds/Moon_Disc
Summary: In the aftermath of Gauda Prime, every villain wanted to claim he was the man who had killed Roj Blake. Everyone, that is, except the man who everyone said hadactuallykilled him. Because being associated with Blake could be fatal...





	1. Chapter One

“So you’re the man who killed Roj Blake.”

She was a beautiful woman. Thick black hair, cropped at the jawline, and a tight purple dress straining in all the right places. Out of my league. Out of most people’s league, if I’m being honest. The louche ruffian she had picked couldn’t believe his luck. She was pawing him and he, the poor fool, was loving every minute of it. I was tempted to warn him off, then he made his first mistake.

“Yes, I did that,” he said. 

Too pleased with himself, by far. Bolstered by the cheap spirits he had been drinking for the last couple of hours and looking to impress his attractive companion. Any sympathy I had for him evaporated right there.

The woman smiled, all teeth and feline green eyes. She liked what she was hearing.

“So brave,” she purred, rubbing her hand across his chest. Her fingers dipped inside his shirt and lingered there. He twitched appreciatively. “Tell me, how did you do it?”

He caught her face in his hand and caressed the soft angle of her jaw. “Turn you on, does it?”

“I like the details.”

Details being important, of course. I’d heard every variant of the story. Every villain these days liked to claim he was the man who had killed Blake. They thought it gave them a certain rough charm. Everyone, that is, except the man who everyone said had _actually_ killed him.

Looking at this dissipated specimen, I wasn’t expecting to be surprised.

“Well then, I shot him, straight through the heart.”

Exactly as I thought. Unimaginative. I’ve heard better. This fool wasn’t even trying.

“Did you?” she said, wide-eyed with awe and admiration. “And the others?”

“Shot them too. No problem.”

She pressed closer, her lips seeking his. “Did you get your reward?”

He gave a short laugh as he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m hoping to get it now.”

I caught myself wincing. I knew what was coming. So should he, if he hadn’t been distracted by a pretty face. I saw the glint of polished steel in her hand, saw when she raised it and slipped it between his ribs. The look of lust on his face contorted in turn into confusion and horror and agony. Mouth gaping, he slid from her grasp and fell to the floor.

The other patrons of the bar chose to ignore him. They kept their eyes averted when she wiped the knife on his torn jacket and buried themselves in their glasses when she started to rifle through his clothes. I knew what she was looking for and knew where she could find it, too. 

Because I had it, in my shirt pocket, against my heart. I tell myself I keep it there for safety, but really it’s there to remind me of what it cost. A disc, loaded with five million credits, one for every death. That’s the reward she’s looking for. The reward for killing Blake and Avon and Tarrant and Soolin and Dayna. A kill fee, in every sense.

I don’t want it, never asked for it. I hate the smooth feel of it, the slight weight of it. Yet I can’t get rid of it. If I do, they’ll know who I am.

Vila Restal. The man who betrayed Blake. And Avon. And Tarrant. And Soolin. And Dayna.

I hadn’t meant for it to happen. It started out as something that could have done me a good turn. One of the guards, pulling me aside, telling me about another prisoner who they didn’t want to reach the penal colony. The worst of crimes, he’d told me, the lowest of the low. Befriend him, encourage him to make a bid for escape, and let him meet with a convenient accident. In return for my help, I would have my conviction overturned and enough money to keep me out of trouble for the rest of my days.

I had no problem with that. But then I learned that the charges were false and he’d been framed because he was one of those political agitators the Federation don’t want the likes of me to know about. That’s when I started having my doubts. The more I learned, the more my conscience started bothering me. Worse of all, he came back for me after he had managed to escape.

After that, I felt I owed him. And I liked him too. It made telling him what I had done difficult.

The more time went on and I got to know the others, it became impossible. I kept telling myself it didn’t matter, it was all in the past. But it wasn't.

As part of the deal, I had had to swallow a tracking device. They wanted to keep an eye on me, in case I had got ideas about ducking out of the deal. Temporary, they said. It will pass out of your system eventually, they said. How long that would take worried me. Every time the pursuit ships picked up our trail, I had a twinge of guilt. Every time we were almost caught, I wondered if it was my fault.

Eventually, I convinced myself it must have gone. But at the back of my mind, the thought remained entrenched. It would wake me up at night, from dreams where I saw my friends dead. On those nights, I would get up, take a walk around the ship to make sure everything was all right, pour myself a drink and let the soma do its work. And, if sometimes I noticed when I was a little worse for wear, that the pursuit ships seemed to lose us for a while, well, then having another drink was less an indulgence and more a duty, a sacrifice that needed to made if it deadened the effects of the tracking device.

Like most things, it was an illusion. Like thinking I was free. We had outrun trouble so many times you get to thinking the worst will never happen. And then came Gauda Prime.

Getting shot was bad enough. I had three cracked ribs to show for it. Blunt force trauma, they called it, what you get when a low energy bolt hits you in the back. The troopers had been given those same non-standard issue weapons, like the ones they had been using when we rescued Avalon all those years ago. Unlike that time, they hadn’t wanted us to escape. Capture was what they had in mind.

I could have lived with that. A short existence probably, but better than what I got. It certainly wasn’t what I had been expecting.

For a start, I hadn’t expected to be helped up when I came round and clapped on the back and told what a good job I had done.

I hadn’t expected to see that hardened look of hatred on Avon’s face when they were dragging him away. 

I hadn’t wanted to hear what he was calling me, over and over, when he was hauled from the tracking gallery out of my sight until his distant voice was the only reminder of his presence.

Traitor.

 _Traitor_.

TRAITOR.

Because I was. 

Not intentionally. I had said nothing to them and the Federation had been following us all that time, waiting to pounce. The tracking device had never left me, like they said it would. I had been a fine undercover agent, they told me, a credit to the Federation. All those years, and Blake and Avon and Tarrant and Soolin and Dayna never knew.

They gave me a handful of nanobots to swallow to make the device release the hold it had on my insides. I threw it up five minutes later. Since then, a feeling of nausea was my constant companion. I knew it had nothing to do with any lingering effects of the device.

Then they gave me the disc. Five million credits, all for me. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Just one more thing I could do for them, and then the money was all mine.

When they told me what it was, I would have done it for nothing. Orac, they said, get Avon to tell us where he had hidden him. He was being difficult, they said. I knew, I could hear what they were doing to him. So I told them. Anything to stop the screaming.

And it was over. I was free to go. Money in my hand and passage to the planet of my choosing. It was the least they could do, for an agent of my standing. Because I was, wasn’t I, one of their best? And because I am a coward, I said yes.

They let me leave after that. My last memory of Avon was the sight of him on a trolley as I passed by in the corridor. Blood trails from his nose and ears had left red streaks across his face. He was insensible and I was grateful, for his sake and mine. I already had his final words impressed on my mind. I didn’t need to hear anything else.

I ended up back on Freedom City. All those worlds at my disposal and I had nowhere else to go. The news of Blake’s death had beaten me there. The fear set in when the Federation announced the other rebels had been executed and a super computer was under their control. No one was safe, me least of all when my name started being bandied about as ‘The Hero of the Federation’, the man who had finally ended Blake’s petty rebellion.

Blake, as it turned out, still had a lot of friends. I wasn’t so worried about any of Avon’s friends; he had done a good job of killing most of his. But Blake continued to command a loyalty that had seen a bounty placed on my head and a whole galaxy of people out looking for me.

Some days, I wished they would find me. It was a miserable existence. I had lost the luxury of the _Liberator_ and the security of Xenon base. I had a fortune I could not spend and I never stopped looking over my shoulder. I spent my nights huddled in corners, hiding from bounty hunters and assassins like the woman in the purple dress.

Slovenliness was a good disguise. She hadn’t given a second glance in my clothes that had seen better days, my matted beard and hair that hadn’t known a comb for months. I was just another member of the human flotsam and jetsam that rolled into Freedom City and never managed to leave its shores. She had set her sights instead on the only man in the bar wasting his money on foul liquor. He had learned to his cost that associating yourself with Gauda Prime could be fatal.

Now she was on the prowl for another victim. The fact that a man lay dead under the barstools didn’t seem to bother anyone. The barman, a greasy moon-faced individual, threw a towel over him and went back to his work, leaving the disposal of the remains to the next shift. Several patrons left in a hurry, stepping over the corpse on their way out.

Following their lead, I downed the last of my drink and made for the door. 

I almost made it. In my haste, I tripped over the outstretched foot of a drunkard slumped by the door. Rudely awakened, he wanted to make a fuss about it. I made my apologies and started to back away, aware that we were drawing attention. And then, within reach of the threshold, I heard the one name I dreaded above all others.

“Here, I know you,” said the drunkard, stabbing his finger idly in my direction. “You’re Vila Restal.”

Hesitating was a mistake. Looking back was my next. Silence had descended on the bar. All eyes were fixed on me. The woman with the green eyes worried me most of all. Her head had snapped round at the mention of my name. In her eyes, I read renewed determination. Vila Restal, dead or alive, worth ten million credits to the person who could find him.

We stood there, staring at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. It took the drunkard to break the spell.

“I remember you,” he slurred. “Vila Restal.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammered.

“Yes, you do.” He lurched to his feet and swayed unsteadily. “We shared a cell, oh, about 10 years back. I was doing a stretch for punching a trooper and you were in for petty theft.”

“No, I wasn’t!” I said, backing away. “You’ve got the wrong man!”

The drunkard chuckled. Actually, I think I did know him, a lifetime ago.

“Now I might be a few plasma bolts short of a full complement,” said he, “but I’d know that face of yours anywhere. I had to look at it for long enough.” He staggered over and slapped me on the back. The woman was growing impatient, but anything that put a barrier between her and me was welcome, even this old inebriate. “What have you been up to lately?” he wanted to know.

“Killing Roj Blake,” said the woman suddenly. “He’s a traitor to the cause of freedom.”

At the rear of the bar, several men got to their feet and started in our direction.

My friend’s eyes rolled. “What, him, Vila? He couldn’t shoot a hole through a ladder.”

I couldn’t wait any longer. I slipped his grasp and pushed him at the woman. They collided and her curses followed me as I took to my heels. I knew these corridors like the back of my hand, every filthy nook and cranny, every sheltering doorway and storage locker in which to hide. I ran and kept running. Once word got out I was here, it was only a matter of time before one of them found me. I had to find the deepest, darkest service duct and stay there until the excitement died down. The lure of ten million credits would take a long time to dull their interest.

In an ill-lit corridor behind the picture house, I found a trap door set into the floor. Half-concealed by bins heaving with waste, I had to haul the debris away before I could lift the handle. Rust had seized the hinges and, despite my best efforts, it refused to open, even a crack. It was too late in any case. When I glanced up, she was there.

“On your feet,” she said, nodding to me. “Up against the wall.”

She had the blade in her hand again. I tried to not imagine what it was going to feel like when she got close enough to use it.

“Wait,” I said. “If it’s money you want, I can give you five million credits right now.”

Her lip curled. “You dare to offer me your ‘kill fee’? I don’t want your blood money, Restal.”

“What then? I know the reward is more–”

“Killing you is my reward. Blake was a good man. You might not have pulled the trigger, but you killed him.” She advanced. I fell backwards amidst the litter, feeling my palm press against something wet and clotted. “On second thoughts,” she said, smiling down at me, “stay where you are. It’s a good place for a coward to die.”

I had shut my eyes, waiting for the fatal thrust of the knife, so I didn’t see him when he first appeared. The slight cry that escaped her when the blow fell across the back of her head made me look up. And there he was. A figure shrouded in the shadows, his arms still raised and hands clasped in a double-fist. 

I wasn’t hopeful that he was a passer-by doing a good deed. More likely, he was another bounty hunter, removing the competition to claim the prize for himself. My mind started to race, covering old ground as it dredged up the many of ways to die that the rebels might invent for me when they took their revenge. On reflection, a quick death at the hands of a pretty woman had some appeal.

I lay where I was, hardly daring to move. The figure slowly lowered his arms, surveying me from the darkness. It was unnerving. I was so far from being scared that sheer terror alone made me bold.

“Who-who are you?” I asked.

“Don’t you know me, Vila?”

I did. I heard his voice every night in my dreams. I had started hearing it in the daytime too. That same reproach, over and over. 

Traitor.

 _Traitor_.

TRAITOR.

I recoiled from him, finding my escape blocked when I came up against a hard metal wall. Somewhere behind it, vibrant music was playing. My heart was racing to keep up with the beat as he stepped into the slash of yellow light coming from the flickering overhead fitting.

Kerr Avon. Alive. This time he _was_ going to kill me.


	2. Chapter Two

Avon didn’t bother telling me to get up.

He grabbed me by the lapels and thrust me up against the wall, hitting my head repeatedly against its surface to punctuate his remarks.

“You lying, conniving, double-dealing, back-stabbing, thieving, traitorous little—”

“I didn’t do it,” I wailed.

Avon tightened his grip. I felt my feet starting to leave the floor. “Of course you did it, Vila! I was there. I heard what they said!”

Another thump against the wall. My head was spinning. My collar was pressing against my windpipe and I was struggling to breathe. I wouldn’t have put it past him to try to strangle me with my own clothes.

“I never told them anything!” I protested. I gripped his hands, trying to prise his fingers free. He held on fast. “Avon, come on, you know me!”

“Do I? I know what you did. You betrayed us and then you ran.”

“I had to! People were looking for me.”

“I wonder why,” he said sardonically.

“They’re saying I betrayed Blake.”

“You did. They followed us to Gauda Prime because of you. If that wasn’t bad enough, you told them where to find Orac.”

My teeth rattled as the back of my head impacted against the metal. The wall now bore several Vila-shaped dents. “I did it for you. They said you wouldn’t tell them.”

Avon’s lip curled. “If you think I can’t handle a little torture, Vila, you don’t know me at all.”

“I thought I was helping.”

“Helping yourself, you mean.” If looks could kill, I would have shrivelled to nothing on the spot under Avon’s glare. “You gave away our only advantage. Well, I hope it was worth it. You left us nothing.”

“How was I to know?” I said desperately.

Avon’s hold started to loosen. Just in time. My vision was going black around the edges.

“Don’t play the fool, Vila. It’s too late for that,” he said with vehemence. His eyes narrowed. “Do you know what the Federation does with prisoners who have nothing to offer?”

I swallowed hard. “They execute them?”

“That’s right. And do you know _how_ they do it? Do you have _any_ idea?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to think about it.

“The others?” I asked faintly.

“Dead. Servalan made me watch.”

“The reports said you were too. But... you aren’t.”

It was one of those silly observations that just slip out. Avon’s eyes flared with cold fury and I thought my last hour had come.

“Because they botched it!” Another thud of my head against the wall. My wits were beginning to fray. “The last thing they had left to do to us and they couldn’t get that right.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Not for you, Vila. When I came round in that Federation mortuary, the only thing I could think of was eviscerating you. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

He released me. I knew he meant it. I told myself it was the effects of being half-throttled that had turned my legs to jelly and made me drop to the floor. Truth is, I couldn’t have stood even if I’d wanted to do so. He was right too. Nothing I could say at this point would make it better. Still, there had to be something, however inadequate.

“Sorry,” I offered.

“Sorry doesn’t work with me any more,” said Avon dismissively. “If it ever did.”

“Then why didn’t you let her kill me?” 

I nodded to the unconscious woman.

Avon glanced down at me. “Because if anyone’s going to kill you, it will be me.” He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to my feet. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

He marched me along, away from the darkness and into the more populated areas, ignoring the onlookers who in turn pretended they hadn’t seen us. After the excitement at the bar, I must have been the best known face on Freedom City. Yet here I was, being taken without a murmur of protest. It’s the unwritten code, of course. The capture had been made and some lucky sod was going to be ten million credits richer. I saw several of them eyeing Avon with speculation and deciding against any attempt to take me from him. 

Who could blame them? In the better light of the main corridors, he looked fiercely determined, a menacing figure clad in relentless black with an unhappy captive in tow. I couldn’t see his weapon, but I knew he had one somewhere. And in his mood, I wouldn’t have given much for anyone’s chances. Knowing him as I did, I also thought he looked... well, I suppose the word was haunted. Who wouldn’t be, after what had happened to us? I don’t suppose I looked much better. Even my mother would have had a hard job recognising me now.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

We were heading towards the main docking area. I hoped he had a ship waiting rather than taking me to the nearest airlock for a quick walk in space. The longer I managed to survive, the more I fostered a vague idea I could change his mind. Not that it had never worked in the past. But until that last moment comes, you never really give up, however much you think you already have.

“I’m taking you back to my ship,” said Avon gruffly.

I breathed again. “Handing me over for the reward?”

I was trying to gauge how much time I had.

“No,” he said flatly. “No amount of money will beat the satisfaction I will get from killing you.”

“You don’t mean that,” I said. “You’ve have done it by now, if you were going to.”

“There’s no ‘if’ about it, Vila.”

Avon turned his head to look at me. I tried to divine the secrets behind those hard eyes and failed. I was the enemy now, nothing more. I knew Avon worked on extremes, swinging at will from one to the other and permitting no grey areas. It’s hard trying to reason with someone like that. Everyone needs a little grey in their lives, I’ve always thought. But Avon had given up on grey a long time ago, in his life, in his clothes and in his acquaintances, if he still had any.

“So what’s it going to be?” I asked.

From the firm set of his lips, I gathered he wasn’t planning on telling me. Instead, he pressed on. I was resisting and he was having to use increasing force to drag me along. If we were going to do this, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

“Avon,” I said, coming to a halt. “I’m talking to you.”

His features registered his annoyance when he saw I wasn’t going to co-operate until I got an answer. “You remember Shrinker?”

“Ah, the old cave and weapon routine. Not very original.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought. So this time, I’m not going to leave you a weapon.”

Now that was terrifying. My gut clenched at the thought of what lay ahead. 

Years ago, I had asked Cally what dying alone and silent meant. One of those self-evident statements, I should have thought. Unless everyone goes together in some planetary catastrophe and there’s lots of shouting involved, alone and silent seemed to me to the common lot. At the time, she had been offended at what she thought was me poking fun. But I was starting to see that wasn’t what she meant. Alone and silent meant friendless and forgotten. I had already been living that life for the last eight months. I didn’t want to die that way too.

“No,” I said with alarm. “I’m not going with you.”

Avon grabbed my arm. “I’m not giving you the choice.”

I pulled away. “This isn’t fair.”

“Tell that to Tarrant, Dayna and Soolin, and see if they agree with you.”

He reached for me again and missed. “What about you?” I returned. “You killed Blake.”

Several people glanced surreptitiously in our direction. Avon pursed his lips.

“Why don’t you say that louder, Vila? They didn’t hear you in the casino.”

It struck me then that was probably a good suggestion. I wasn’t about to be led meekly to my death, not by Avon, not by anyone. 

I ran.

I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there. Ahead, the brighter lights of the more respectable areas of Freedom City beckoned, where the party never ended and credits flowed from the patrons to the croupiers without a second thought. Krantor might have been long gone, but business had continued much as it had always done. The only sign of a change was the sentry they had posted on the door of the casino to keep out the undesirables. People like me.

I ran headlong into him. As tall as Gan and twice as broad, he caught me by the scruff of my collar and arrested my flight. I thought of telling him that I had come in costume as a tramp, but he had the sort of humourless expression that made think his reply would be a physical one. I decided to tell him the truth.

“I’m Vila Restal,” I said. “And I’m worth ten million credits!”

He looked me up and down, taking in my unshaven face and my stained and dirty clothes, and was unimpressed. “Could have fooled me,” he said.

“You could do yourself a good turn,” I said desperately. “There’s a bounty on my head. Dead or alive, they don’t care.” Dead, I hoped. He looked like he could make it quick too. Better that than being left to starve to death if Avon got his way.

“I think you’ve had too much to drink,” he said. “Why don’t you go home and sleep it off?”

Just my luck. I had found the only person on Freedom City who had never heard of me. 

“Please!” I said. “Help me! I’m in trouble. There’s a man chasing me. He wants to kill me!”

“Really?” he said sceptically. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.” His gaze turned to a point over my shoulder and I knew Avon was behind him. “Is he with you, sir?”

Avon, better dressed and groomed, was always going to be believed over me. “You’ve caught him, good,” he said, almost reasonably. I had heard that tone of voice before. It was when he was hunting for me on Egrorian’s shuttle. It sounded as false to me now as it did then. “He’s a petty thief.”

“I thought as much,” said my captor. “I’ll turn him over to the authorities.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Avon replied. “He stole from me. I want to deal with him myself.”

The man’s face slowly creased into an unctuous smile. I don’t know what he thought Avon was about to do to me, but he obviously found it appealing. So much for thinking he could help me.

“You might want to take precautions against him escaping again, sir,” he said. “He’s slippery, this one. Here, let me help.”

So saying, he pushed me face-first up against the wall with such force that I felt something give in my nose. Pain followed, along with the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, as he wrenched my arms behind my back and knotted something tight and unyielding around my wrists. Satisfied with his work, he thrust me into Avon’s waiting arms.

“He’s all yours, sir,” he said, washing his hands of me.

“So he is,” said Avon, next to my ear. “Thank you.”

“No problem at all, sir. Take more care next time.”

As Avon hauled me away, I kept thinking that there wasn’t likely to be a next time. They would wash the blood off the wall, erasing the last trace of my existence. Then that would be it for Vila Restal. Well and truly friendless and forgotten.


	3. Chapter Three

I’d given up trying to run. With hindsight, I realised Freedom City had been a poor choice. There are only so many places to hide in a place like that. A planet would have been better, where I could have found a nice deep hole to live in and kept out of everyone’s way.

Ironic that, considering Avon was about to leave me in one anyway.

My thoughts kept turning to our destination. Since Avon had bundled me on his ship and we had set out, he hadn’t spoken one word to me. He still wasn’t speaking, a good thirty minutes into the journey. I was sitting next to him, in the co-pilot’s seat of his ship, and there he was, a few feet away, head in his hands, pretending I didn’t exist.

Not fair, I thought, and not for the first time. I was taking all the blame, as if I was the only one to ever make a mistake.

I kicked him and he started, finally sparing me a glance.

“I’m hungry,” I said. “Condemned men get a last meal.”

“I didn’t,” he replied. “Tarrant didn’t.”

“Blake didn’t,” I said before he could reel off the whole list of names again. If we were playing the blame game, I wasn’t going to let him get off lightly. “Where are we heading, Avon?”

With a weary sigh, he called up a visual of our destination. The screen filled with an image of a dust-coloured pock-marked world, deeply scarred by decades of heavy industry. Pellucidus in Sector Three. Fifty feet below the bedrock, the planet’s core was solid crystal. Mining companies had been sinking massive bore holes into every available inch of land for decades in order to extract the valuable ore, so many and so wide that people had been known to get lost in them for days. I guessed that was the reason we were going there, to lose me or for me to lose myself, whichever of those options suited his purpose best.

“I’m going to land the ship in one of the shafts, let you out and then I’m leaving,” said Avon.

Deep holes, straight down, smooth crystal sides. No food, no water, no way out. Grim, when you thought about it. I tried not to think about it.

“Where are you going after that?” I ventured.

He shook his head. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Think you might need some company?”

With that, he rose abruptly to his feet and left. I was alone for a good while, with only the dizzying view of passing stars for company. When he returned, he had a knife and a silver pouch in his hand. Any situation where Avon has a weapon in his hand always has the potential to go either way, so it was a relief when he turned me round and used the knife to cut my hands free. Tossing the pouch onto my lap, he retook his seat.

I inspected it. Standard dehydrated rations, an unappetising mix of protein, carbohydrate, fibre and salt with some vitamins thrown in for good measure. Delicious, it said on the pouch. I would have to take their word for it. All it needed was water and Avon had forgotten that. Or chosen not to bring it. Either way, I wasn’t eating it.

I caught him staring at me. “What now?” he said.

Regardless of the water, the fact he’d brought me anything suggested something I could work with. Perhaps his conscience was giving him trouble. I doubted it, knowing Avon. Whatever it was, it represented a possibility.

“Leave me a gun,” I said.

“No.”

He looked away and fixed his gaze on the view of a distant nebula.

“You left one for Shrinker,” I ventured. “He had done things much worse than I’ve ever done, and to more people.”

I left that thought with him. It took time, but eventually he relented, drawing out the weapon I suspected he’d had in his boot all along and laying it on the console in front of him. Too far for me to reach, close enough for him to reclaim quickly if I tried my luck.

“All right, Vila,” he said slowly. “Convince me. Why did you do it?”

I shrugged. “Blake.”

“He didn’t make you do it.”

“No, I mean I did it _because_ of him.” Avon drew his attention back to me. Now I had his interest, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. “Back at the holding centre before we were put on the _London_ , they wanted me to kill him because of what they said he had done.”

“Plausible,” said Avon. “I was surprised he made it as far as he did.”

“They offered me a pardon and a reward.”

“What changed your mind?”

“When I found out he’d been set up. Well, I couldn’t, could I, not after that. He’d never done me any harm.”

“What about the tracking device?” Avon asked.

“I thought it would go through me, eventually.”

Avon looked at me sharply. “You didn’t think to check?”

“Well,” I said, shifting in my seat uncomfortably, “it’s difficult to know, isn’t it?”

“A scan, Vila, would have told you,” he retorted. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

It was my turn to look away. There was that annoying hindsight again, asking me the same question.

“I _was_ going to tell you,” I insisted. “But it’s not the sort of thing you can just drop into a conversation. ‘All systems functioning normally, Blake, and by the way, the Federation wanted me to kill you.’” I shrugged again. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “And as time went on, I reasoned it had probably stopped working and we were safe.”

“An assumption which has been the death of most of us.”

“All right!” I yelled. I couldn’t help myself. “It was my fault. I had nowhere else to go and I thought if I said, Blake would put me off the _Liberator_. I mean, I wouldn’t have me around if I thought I was an assassin. And anyway,” I added, “how did me having a tracking device help the Federation? They could only tell where we’d been, not where we were going.”

“If they had tracked the signal for long enough, they could have worked out our bearing at any given time,” said Avon.

“Oh.” Now he put it like that, I saw his point. “They couldn’t have known about Gauda Prime, though,” I said in my defence. “They were already there when we arrived.”

Avon turned in his chair. He was smiling. I was on my guard.

“That’s because they knew we were coming.”

“Oh?” I said warily. “Who told them?”

“Blake. Well, have you heard enough?”

He said it so loud, I wondered for a moment who he was talking to. Not me, sitting right beside him.

“Yes,” suddenly came a voice from behind me.

I turned and there he was. Alive. Blake was alive.

I got up, my mouth hanging open, the pouch on my lap forgotten. Dried fragments crunched under my feet as I advanced towards him. I reached out, poked him in the stomach. He was whole, he was solid, he was real. He still had the scar and had changed into a new shirt, but he was as I remembered him. He was also upright, which was an improvement since our previous meeting.

“I-I don’t understand,” I stammered. “You’re dead. No, you _were_ dead.”

“Vila, you’re in shock,” Blake said, his face crinkling into a smile. “Come and sit down.” 

He took my arm and guided me back to my seat.

I sat. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “You’re not dead,” I managed to utter.

“Evidently,” said he. “I’m sorry, Vila. We couldn’t tell you. We set it all up.”

“You... _and him_?” My gaze drifted to Avon. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Avon,” Blake said, “have we got anything to settle Vila’s nerves?”

Grudgingly, Avon got to his feet and left.

“Adrenalin and soma will do,” I called after him. “We’re not going to Pellucidus?”

Blake took the seat Avon had vacated and shook his head. “Not unless you want to.” He smiled at my reaction. “No, I thought not. We are going back to Gauda Prime.”

I pulled a face. That was the last place I wanted to go. “Why?”

“Because Tarrant, Soolin and Dayna are waiting for us there.”

I gripped his arms. “They’re alive?!”

“Yes, Vila,” he said reassuringly. “Everyone is alive – and well, come to that. The planet is under our control.”

My head was in a whirl. This was too much to take in. “But you were dead. All that blood. Avon shot you.”

“Something I should have done years ago,” said Avon, returning. He thrust a glass into my hand. “Water and soma. It’s the best we can do.”

“You see,” Blake began, “we found out about the tracking device some time after the attack on what we thought was Control on Earth. Quite by chance, you had been knocked unconscious, we did a scan and there it was. It explained a lot.”

“Like how the Federation was able to turn up as regularly as they did,” said Avon.

“It did present us with a problem,” Blake continued. “For a start, did you know? Were you an agent of the Federation? Avon said not.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling up at Avon. 

I didn’t quite like the look he was giving me.

“My actual words were that you didn’t have the intelligence for such an assignment,” said Avon.

“Added to which,” Blake said, “the Federation couldn’t have known we would come across the _Liberator_. Either you _were_ the best agent they had or it was something else.”

“Something else,” I said gratefully. “Definitely something else.”

“Then there was the tracking device itself. It had embedded itself in your gut near a major artery. To remove it would have meant taking a good part of your stomach with it. Orac suggested it might have means of protecting itself, which was another good reason for leaving it where it was.”

“You mean it was bobby-trapped?”

“Possibly,” said Avon. “We couldn’t be certain.”

“We didn’t want to take any chances,” said Blake. “And we didn’t want to worry you either.” He frowned slightly. “We couldn’t tell you and you wouldn’t tell us, so what were we to do with you, Vila?”

“I had a few suggestions,” said Avon.

“I bet you did,” I replied.

“While we could stay one step ahead of the Federation, you’re weren’t so much of a problem, Vila,” said Blake. “But then, after we were split up after the Intergalactic War, we decided to leave it that way. With Control destroyed, there were things I needed to do without the Federation constantly keeping track on me. It gave me space to consolidate what we had done and gather our forces, and Avon took responsibility for you.”

“That sounds like he adopted me,” I said with indignation.

“In much the same way one adopts fleas,” Avon remarked.

This was too much to take in. I was trying as hard as I could to think straight. “But we were looking for you!” I said to Blake.

“Avon knew where I was.”

“ _Some_ of the time,” he returned.

“And I always knew where you were,” Blake continued. “Orac had provided me with the frequency of the tracking device. Because we couldn’t be sure of you, Vila, I was keeping watch on the _Liberator’s_ activities from a distance. Whenever you stayed too long in any one location, someone was sent to investigate in case the Federation had taken all of you prisoner. Even without me there, the _Liberator_ was still a viable target.”

“I see.” I made a thoughtful noise. “So, why did we go to Terminal?”

Avon made a rueful noise. “I lost contact with Blake. Not the first time, but it was a concern. When I received the message...” He paused. His eyes became distant for a moment as he considered. “It seemed genuine. Until Servalan told me he had died on Jevron a year ago, I wasn’t sure. We had spoken in that time, so I knew she was lying. Unfortunately, by then, we had lost the _Liberator_.”

“And Cally,” I said sadly. I regretted that. Every time I thought about her, my stomach felt cold and bruised.

“Oh, yes, Cally,” said Blake. “She’s on Kaarn at the moment, helping the Auron colony.”

I stared at him. “She’s alive? No, she died on Terminal.”

“Who told you that?” said Avon.

“You did.” Realisation slowly dawned. “Oh, _you_ did.”

“That’s right, I did,” he replied. “She was alive when I found her. Injured, but alive. Areas of the living quarters were still viable. She was safer where she was. I didn’t tell you because I was expecting someone to come looking for us. It was a question of who would get there first. If the Federation, I didn’t want her to fall into their hands. If Blake, then we would have taken her with us. I wasn’t expecting Dorian.”

I held his gaze. “You took a chance. You can’t have known Blake would still follow us to Terminal after we had left.”

Avon gave me that slow blink of his that should have told me I had missed something. “You told me you heard Cally call his name. Didn’t you think that was strange?”

“Now you come to mention it.” I gave it some thought. “That means she knew about the tracking device too!”

“Of course,” said Avon. “She found it.”

“We were on our way in any case,” said Blake. “Then we received the news about the _Liberator_ and it became a priority. We found Cally, but you were already gone.”

That cold spot had swelled into anger in my gut. “All that time,” I said to Avon, “you let me think she was dead.”

I got up and went over to him. As close as I was, he didn’t flinch. 

“You could have been working for the Federation,” he retorted. “I wasn’t about to tell you anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

“Like not telling me why we were really going to Gauda Prime.”

“That least of all.”

Blake put himself between us. “It had to be done, Vila. The situation was becoming untenable. The Federation were making advances. I couldn’t leave it much longer to make a move. We had to know which side you were on one way or another. And we needed that tracking device removed. We here hoping since they gave it to you, they would know how to get it out.”

“They did,” they said.

“So I left enough clues for the Federation to find me, and all I had to do then was to wait. Once they started coming, they were easy to identify. I was able to intercept their weapons too, which is how I knew they were planning on taking us prisoner. After that, I sent Jenna away to act as our back-up if things went wrong and contacted Avon. Yes, Vila, she’s alive too,” he said, nodding when he saw my expression. “The only people who didn’t know were you, Tarrant, Dayna and Soolin. We thought it would be more convincing that way.”

“It certainly was,” I said, my hand going involuntarily to my back.

“We needed the Federation to believe I was dead and that we were fractured as a group,” he said.

“It worked,” I muttered. “All that blood. I thought...”

“When have you ever seen a plasma rifle do that?” said Avon.

I felt my brow furrow. “Well, now you come to mention it...”

“Exactly. You didn’t see Blake’s assistant go down like that and I shot her first. Overly ostentatious, if you ask me.”

“But effective,” said Blake. “The Federation took the bait. In the aftermath, they identified you as their agent and they made sure Avon saw it, to demoralise him and the others. They removed your tracking device and that was where it should have ended. Unfortunately, I was delayed. We hadn’t anticipated you giving them Orac either.”

“I had to,” I said. “Avon was being tortured.”

“I was managing,” said he.

“No, you weren’t. You were howling.” 

I didn’t say screaming. Screaming brought back unhappy memories.

“Yes, well, try having your eardrums perforated with a laser probe and tell me how it feels.”

“Ouch,” I said. “No permanent damage?”

Avon gave a curt shake of his head.

“And then you ran, Vila.” Blake’s expression was apologetic. “What were we to think? I hadn’t planned on staying dead this long. It was necessary to keep up the pretence in case you had deceived us and was really a Federation agent all along. The truth is, they were using you for propaganda. Rebels turning on rebels, that sort of thing.”

“So all this,” I said gesturing about me, “was to test me?”

Blake laid a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You passed, Vila.”

I smiled with gratitude. “You should have trusted me.”

“We could say the same about you,” said Avon.

“As it was, we had to scare you into telling us the truth,” said Blake.

“He did that,” I said, looking at Avon. “He can be very convincing when he wants to be. Especially on shuttles.”

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same if you’d thought of it first,” Avon retorted.

“You didn’t think of it. Orac suggested it.”

“Speaking of Orac,” said Blake, “without the tracking device, we didn’t know where you were. We had to recover Orac before we could locate you. And it sounded like we got to you just in time. You hid well, Vila.”

“I’m good at that,” I said, giving Avon a sideways glance. “There was a bounty on my head.”

“Yes, I’m sorry about that.” Blake seemed genuinely apologetic. I accepted it. “Now we’re back together, we can concentrate on bringing the Federation to its knees. If you want to stay with us, that is, Vila.”

“Oh, yes.” I beamed at him. I even beamed at Avon. “It’s good to feel safe again.”

**The End**

_Well, it’s nice to have a happy ending some times, isn’t it?_


End file.
